


Mirage

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Episode: s15e13 Destiny's Child, F/M, The Empty (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24325252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: Castiel goes to the Empty in search of information about the Occultum and meets a familiar face.
Relationships: Castiel/Meg Masters
Kudos: 41





	Mirage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NarrowWoodsWriting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NarrowWoodsWriting/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Amanda!

The Empty extended before him, infinite and silent.

Castiel stared at it, questioning his decision for the first time since making it. They desperately needed to know the location of the Occultum, yes, but how was he supposed to find Ruby in this vastness? How was he to wake her up and convince her to tell her what he needed to know?

All of that while expecting the Entity not to notice him.

He started walking. Jack would pull him back in time and he hoped he had the answers to all his questions by then.

He hadn’t taken two steps into the darkness when he heard a voice that sent a shiver down his spine.

“Clarence?”

No one had called him that in ages. Not with that smoky voice he knew all too well.

He stopped and turned around, his eyes scanning the darkness.

He found her a few steps behind him.

“Meg?” he called her. “Meg!”

He ran towards her and knelt by her side. She blinked at him, disconcerted. She still looked like the girl she had possessed all those years ago, with her round face and her sweet brown eyes. The last time he’d seen her, though, her hair had been bushy and stained with blood. Now, it flowed clean and soft over her shoulders, in long blonde curls.

He placed a hand on her back and helped her sat up. She clung to his trench coat, breathing in softly.

“Where are we? What’s going on?” she asked, looking around them.

Castiel bit the inside of his cheek. Those were very complicated questions, indeed.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I’m not sure.” Meg rubbed her eyes with one hand, like she had an oncoming headache. “I was… going up against Crowley and his goons. I took out two of them, but they fucked me up pretty bad. I was trying to prevent them from getting to… to you.” She whipped her head back and stared at him with sudden panic in her eyes. “The Angel Tablet! Did you… did he…?”

“I escaped with it,” Castiel told her. “And so did Sam and Dean, thanks to you.”

Meg breathed out a sigh of relief, but then her hand moved down to her stomach.

“And then the bastard stabbed me,” she remembered. “He killed me.”

Castiel remembered what that had been like, to find the body that had been broken and destroyed in a most cruel manner, laying on the cold pavement. He remembered her weight on his arms, as he carried her away somewhere where they would give take care of her. He couldn’t tell her that, just like he hadn’t told Sam and Dean, how he hadn’t had a moment to mourn her, to honor her sacrifice for them.

Meg was looking around her once more, with a frown on her face.

“So is this… what is this, Hell? I’ve never been to this part before…”

“It’s the Empty,” Castiel explained. “Demons and angels come here when we die. We… sleep. Forever.”

“Yeah, looks like there’s not much else to do around here. This place is a dumpster,” she commented.

Despite how fearful Castiel had been, despite knowing there wasn’t much time for him to do what he was supposed to, he couldn’t help but to smile.

“What’s so funny?” she asked him.

“I’ve missed you.”

Meg glanced at him.

“Not enough to come look for me sooner, though.”

Her words dug into him deeply. He lowered his eyes as the shame clung unto him.

“I… Meg, it’s… complicated. So many things have happened since I lost you.”

“Well, why don’t you help me get up?” she asked him. “And you can explain to me how complicated, exactly. Start with why you don’t look dead and why you are awake too.”

Castiel put an arm around her waist and helped her up. There seemed to be something wrong with her legs, because she could only keep her balance for short periods before he had to catch her up again. When he asked her about it, Meg shrugged.

“Must have been Crowley’s blade that did it. So, you said that this kid is Lucifer’s son…?”

In the end, he just didn’t let go of her at all, keeping an arm around her waist and letting her lean on him like a crutch. She had always been hotter to the touch than a human, her skin warmed by the little piece of Hell that she’d always carried with her. It was a stark contrast with the sterile coldness of Heaven or even the Empty’s absolute nothingness. Her presence was a comfort against the darkness and against the unpleasant memories he had to revisit in order for her to understand why he was there.

“So this Entity wants you dead,” Meg concluded. “And God wants all of you dead. And Death is actually helping you out.”

“Essentially.”

She threw her head back and barked out a laugh.

“You can’t tell me you don’t miss the Apocalypse now!”

Castiel took a moment to think about it and then, just as her, he couldn’t help but to laugh again. It was amazing that they didn’t attract the Entity’s attention, laughing like maniacs in the middle of its domains.

“So we’re looking for Ruby,” Meg said when they calmed down. “Because she knows where this Occultum thing is.”

“Do you know about it?”

“Only that it was one of Heaven’s treasures Lucifer stole when he deflected, along with the Tablets. Then it was stolen from him somehow.” She thought about it for a moment. “I knew Ruby from back in the day. She was one of Lilith’s agents. Are you sure she hid the Occultum in Hell?”

“According to Anael.”

“Never heard of her,” Meg said, frowning. “But if something that powerful was really hidden in Hell since before Lucifer was released, he would’ve found it and used it when he came back. Or Crowley would have when he took over.”

“Exactly!” Castiel said, glad that someone at least was agreeing with him. “It doesn’t make any sense, but Sam and Dean believed her and I’m afraid that she sent them on a wild goose chase.”

“Well, they were never exactly brilliant,” Meg said, with a shrug. “So how are we waking her up?”

“I don’t know,” Castiel said. He hesitated a little and turned towards her. “How are you awake?”

“You must have stepped on me when you walked in,” she said. She made a pause. “Or maybe I woke up because you’re here. Because I sensed you.”

Her voice dropped until it became a whisper. Castiel stopped their aimless wandering and turned to look at her. He found none of the usual sarcasm or studied indifference in her, but something he had only seen rarely in her. Tenderness. A softness she had only displayed towards him when he was lost and helpless.

“Meg…” he started.

“We never got the chance to order that pizza, huh?” she pointed out. She maneuvered herself so they would be standing face to face and put her arms around his neck. “Did you ever really miss me, Castiel?”

The way she pronounced her name, like it was some sort of secret, made him shiver. He pulled her closer to her.

“So much,” he confessed. “When I’ve been all alone, when I’ve been lost… I remembered the kindness you showed me. I remembered how it felt to be with you, to… rest from the turmoil that was on my mind.” He placed a hand on her cheek. “I’ve always felt… at peace with you.”

Meg closed her eyes and leaned into his touch, sighing softly.

“Even now?”

“Now, I… I have to find Ruby,” Castiel reminded himself, even as Meg moved to snuggle his neck. “Find out where she put the Occultum…”

“Yes, I guess you have to do that,” Meg said, dismissively. “But Cas… Clarence. When are we going to see each other again? Your time here is running out and well… you can’t exactly break me out of here, can you?”

Castiel took in a deep, shuddering breath. He had been so overjoyed to see her, to get to talk to her again that he hadn’t even really considered than we left, he would be doing it without her.

“It’ll take me in the end,” Castiel said, though the thought put a bitter taste in his mouth.

“And then we’ll both sleep,” Meg replied, raising her eyes at him. “We might never talk again. We might never be together like this again.”

“Meg, I…” Castiel started, but then her lips were on his and suddenly what he was about to say didn’t seem all that important.

They weren’t corporeal there, not like when they had been on Earth, on their borrowed human flesh. Her soul and the part of his grace that was there could touch more freely, they could melt into one in a way they never could have even on Earth. Castiel stopped thinking as he pulled her close and opened his mouth to her, as his knees gave and he sank down with her into the Empty’s darkness.

The thoughts in the back of his head warned him that he didn’t have time for this, that he had come there with a mission and he couldn’t just get distracted.

But Meg started pushing his coat down his arms and then guided his hands under her shirt, showing him where she wanted him to put them, and all the rationality in his mind was suddenly gone.

She was there. She was with him. That was all that really mattered.

He moved to undo the buttons of her jeans, but Meg’s hand came to rest on top of his, firmly, stopping him.

Castiel look up, frowning in confusion.

“You have to get out here,” she said. There was none of the playfulness or the tenderness from before. Now her expression was serious, almost angry.

“Meg, I have to…”

“You can’t stay,” she replied.

“But the Occultum…”

Meg grabbed at his shirt and pulled him close, so his face was mere inches away from hers.

“St. Judah’s chapel, in Colorado. The top of the cross will point the way.”

“What?” he asked, blinking at her in confusion. “How do you know about this?”

She kissed him again instead of answering. There was an urgency in her mouth, and though Castiel held onto her as tight as he could, suddenly, her body didn’t seem as solid as before.

“Meg…”

“Don’t come back here, Cas,” she warned him. “Don’t let that fucker take you, do you hear me?”

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked, shaking his head. “Meg, what…?”

His hands went through her shoulders. He sat back down, looking at them. The illusion of his body was fading and he knew what that meant.

Jack was trying to bring him back.

“No,” he mumbled. “No, not yet.”

“Clarence, listen to me,” Meg insisted, as she grabbed unto his coat. “You sleep here, but you also dream. All your memories, all your regrets, you relive them over and over again. Don’t come back here, whatever you do.”

Her voice sounded further and further from him and he had to make an effort to focus his eyes on her. To pulled against the call of his own body, of his life awaiting back on Earth.

She smiled at him one last time. If he didn’t know her any better, he could’ve sworn there were tears in her eyes.

“I’ll miss you, angel.”

He tried to scream her name one more time, but he no longer had a tongue or a throat. He stretched his hand, trying to touch her one more time, to assure her that he hadn’t forgotten her, than he never would…

But then the pull became stronger and he was cast out of the darkness.

He opened his eyes with a sudden gasp for air, his grace pushed back inside of himself. It took him a second to adjust to how heavy he felt, to the fact his hands were empty and she was not there with him.

“Cas, you idiot!” Dean’s voice came from somewhere. “What were you thinking?”

Castiel breathed in several times and closed his eyes.

“Cas?” Jack asked to his side, putting a hand on his arm.

He needed to collect himself, but it didn’t make sense. If Meg didn’t know what the Empty was before he woke her, how did she know she dreamed of her regrets there? How she did know where the Occultum was? Why hadn’t she let him speak to Ruby?

It didn’t make any sense. All he understood was the lump in his throat, the impulse to cry and scream and tell Jack he could’ve waited, just a moment longer, just so he could stay with her for another minute.

But that was selfish of him. There were many things going wrong in this Earth and he needed to focus on them. This was his mission, this was what he was meant to do.

Another hand came to rest on his shoulder.

“Cas,” Sam’s soft voice whispered to him. “Are you alright?”

Castiel didn’t even know how to begin to answer that question, so he just slowly looked up at them, swallowing as he did: the confusion in Jack’s face, the concern in Sam’s, the anger in Dean’s.

He couldn’t tell them. They wouldn’t understand. And when he found the way to break Meg out of the Empty, he knew he would have to do it alone.

“I talked to Ruby,” he lied instead. “I know where the Occultum is.”

* * *

“Well,” Meg’s own voice said. “That didn’t go as planned.”

Meg took a deep breath before she slowly turned around.

Herself, or something that looked exactly like herself, was behind her, lounging on a throne with a goblet in her hand. She… the Shadow looked almost disappointed.

“We had a deal, Maren.”

“Meg,” she corrected It.

“You were supposed to make Castiel want to stay here,” the Shadow said. “And I would send you back. It was very simple.”

“Yes, well,” Meg shrugged. “Guess I changed my mind.”

The Shadow clicked its tongue. It raised a hand and closed it on a tight fist.

Meg immediately felt back down, as a pain sharper than any blade went through her, almost ripping her in two. She cried out as the Shadow loomed over her, shaking its head, as if disappointed.

“I thought demons were smarter than that when it came to deals.”

Meg coughed out. Was that blood that she tasted in her mouth? It was impossible as she didn’t have a body here, but she knew better than anyone that was no impediment for torture.

“Not this demon,” she said, smiling at the Shadow, defiantly. “You should have got Ruby. Or Crowley. That asshole would’ve thrown anyone under the bus to save his skin.”

“Yes, maybe,” the Shadow agreed. It took a sip from the goblet, pensively. “But dear old Clarence doesn’t have a soft spot for any of them, does he?”

It made another gesture and the pain returned. Meg bit the inside of her lips as she balled up on what passed for a floor there. She wasn’t going to give It the satisfaction of making her scream again. She’d endured worse in Hell.

The Shadow opened its hand and looked down at Meg.

“What am I gonna do about him?” It sighed. “What am I gonna do about _you_?”

Meg forced her breathing to calm down.

“If you’re not going to let me go, I mean… you could just put me back to sleep.”

It stared at her, Its eyes identical to hers. But there was a hard line of cruelty, of anger, that Meg didn’t recognize as hers. Oh, she could be cruel, her fury could be terrible. But she had left all of that behind, when Crowley had plunged a blade in her gut. Here, she felt… purer. Maybe a bit of who she had been before Hell had twisted her in its image.

Maybe that had been why she could make the right choice, why it had been easier to decide to send Castiel back.

The Shadow seemed to know it too.

“I will, eventually, because I don’t like it when anyone is awake here,” It said. “But since I couldn’t get Castiel and I’m still quite pissed… I guess I will have no choice but to take it out on you, don't I?”

Meg spat at its feet and grinned.

Or maybe this new being was something she already was back on Earth, she really didn’t know. What she knew was that there wasn’t anyone, no god, no cosmic entity, that would get her to hurt her angel.

“Do your worst, bitch.”


End file.
